No Present Like Time

by Steph Swainston

Genres: Fantasy; Epic Fantasy; Action & Adventure

Synopsis

The phenomenal follow-up to Steph Swainston's acclaimed The Year of Our War moves us effortlessly into new waters.

It has been five years since the Insects devastated the Fourlands. Reconstruction proceeds under the watchful eyes of the Circle - the fifty immortals who serve the Emperor.

Jant, the Emperor's winged Messenger, has other concerns. He suspects his wife is having an affair and a brilliant newcomer has joined the Circle, displacing Jant from his rightful position as centre of attention. Worse still, an inhabited island has been discovered three months' sail from the Fourlands and the Emperor has enlisted Jant for his diplomatic mission. Just perfect for a man terrified of the sea. Unfortunately for Jant, he is a pawn in an ancient political game.

It'd be enough to drive anyone to drugs . . .

Release date: December 23, 2010

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group

Print pages: 432

Sample

January 2020

On this soft night I followed the Moren River valley, flying back to the Castle, hearing the chimes of clock towers in the
Plainslands villages as I passed high above.


The night air was shapeless. I couldn’t sense any current. I concentrated, flapping steadily on, marking distance by time,
marking time by going through all the songs I know. I lay horizontally, looking down around me, cruising with stiff, shallow
beats. I felt the air rushing between my feathers on the upstroke. Then I pulled my wings down again, the feathers flattened,
the tight muscles moved around my waist.


Thermals were dissipating as the sun set. I was dropping altitude to find them and the work was getting harder. Fog was forming,
low in the pasture and along the river bank. The tops of the valley sides were dark shapes rising from the mist like islands.
Beyond, I could see parallel hills all the way out to the beginning of Donaise. Hedges and drystone walls looked like black
seams separating fields of clean, lapping white mist. There was no sound, just the skeleton zip of my wings peeling back the
air.


I spotted a point of light in the distance, like a city, and checked my compass – bearings dead on for the Castle and hopefully
there would be some supper left. The speck resolved into a cluster of lights, then each cluster separated again, and distances
between them seemed to grow as I got closer. Lights slipped from the horizon down towards me, until I was over Demesne village.
Street lights shone up, picking the mist out in flat beams. Denser wisps blew past, curling, and the fog began to take on a shape of its own.


The fog changed everything. Fog covered the river’s reflective surface, meandered to the water meadows. Fog poured between
the cultivar yew plantations and spiky poplar coppices where tomorrow’s bows and arrows were painstakingly being grown. Fog
drifted over the roofs of the village where most of the Castle’s staff live. It pooled on the carp ponds, stole into the tax
barns and settled on the market’s thatched roof. It cloaked the watermill, the aqueduct’s dark arches, Hobson’s stable and
the Blacksmith’s yard. Fog overran the Castle’s outermost boundaries. It advanced through the archery fields, lay in the tilting
lists, rolled over the tennis courts. It muffled the concert hall and the bathhouse complex.


One of the Castle’s spires was silhouetted against a white light, which suffused into the mist in an immense grisaille sphere.
The floodlights were on in the amphitheatre. They only illuminated the sharp Northeast Tower, its black sarsen stone striking
in the whiteout. Features became visible as I closed the distance. The Castle’s vast bulk was obscured. Occasionally angular
roofs and the crenellated tops of walls appeared, fragmentary, through the mist. The square base of the round tower was submerged
two metres deep into a sea of fog. I flew through thicker patches – then it looked as if it was receding on the plains. On
a whim, three hundred years ago, the Architect had encrusted her studio in the turret with sculptures. Eagles, storks and
eels loomed out of the mist, with her company’s logo and the tools of her trade in stonework blackened by kitchen smoke. The
windows bristled with deep, tangled marble ivy so realistic that birds were nesting in it.


Fog cold in my eyes and throat like clouds. A smell from the kitchens of wood smoke, roast beef and dishwater had caught in
it. A faint scent of lavender from the laundry house tainted it. Burnt whale oil from the floodlights saturated it, turning the fog into smog.


Storeys and gable roofs and towers rose behind towers. The spaces under the buttresses were filled with tracery. The Carillon
Courtyard had a lawn mowed in wide stripes and a roof that had been covered in scaffolding for eight decades. On the steeplejack’s
walkway was a wooden treadmill twice as tall as a man, used to raise loads of Ladygrace stone. Its basket hung from the rope
wound on its axle.


Two centuries ago, I thought the North Façade was a cliff face formed by the power of nature. I had tilted my head until I
thought I would fall over backwards, but I still couldn’t see the top of its spire. I had crouched on the hard grass a few
hundred metres away, looked up and realised – all the crevices are carvings. The cliff ledges are parapets. Statues of idealised
immortals, pinnaform spires embroidered with vertical lace. The glory of the Emperor, god’s governor of the Fourlands. It
had made my neck ache.


I flew an assured path around walls flaking masonry, mottled with moss. I passed pinnacles decorated with ball flowers. The
Finials, a memorial sculpture, was a row of scalloped arches resting on free-standing black marble shafts. It carried the
signatures of Eszai, people who through their peerless talents have won immortality, a place in the Circle, and reside here.
Graffiti scarred the arches, the names of immortals past and present; I had incised CJS & TW 1892 in a love heart on the highest topstone.


Now invisible in the mist, the gravel courtyard at the foot of the Finials encircled a statue of Dunlin, recently the King
of Awia. I had ordered it to be placed there with the statues of other great warriors so that he would always be remembered.


The tall Aigret Tower seemed to drift in the mist and I sheared through it. It was the Slake Cross Battle cenotaph, square
openwork, completely hollowed out to a lantern of air. At every level its pillars were thicker at the top than at the bottom, so they looked like they were dripping down – melting. It had no walls, its pillars were backed by those of a
second and third tower nested inside; through its worn bird-boned latticework I flew without breaking pace.


Small, indistinct groups of people were heading along the avenue in the direction of the duelling ground. Some carried oil
lamps; their golden light-points bounced away into the distance. Next to the floodlights’ white glare, a whole crowd of lanterns
was gathering. I must take a look and see what’s happening. Standing on one wing I bent my knees and turned. The ground tilted
sharply as I dropped onto the Castle’s roof-forest, like a wasp into a very ornate flower. I swept in so low over the barbican
that my wingtips touched, made a sharp right, narrowly missing the lightning rod. Airstream roared in my ears as I dived towards
the duelling ground, wondering if I could see well enough to land safely.


Fog drifted with me over the low roof of the adjoining gymnasium, and a second later poured from the open mouths of a dozen
gargoyles carved in the shape of serene kings like chess pieces, which leaned out, face down, over ornamental gardens. I flew
through one of the streams, taking a shower in the damp fog. As I glided in on fixed wings, vortices curled off my wingtips
so I left two spiral trails.


The duelling ground is inside a large amphitheatre with high, half-timbered walls topped by flagpoles. The fog had not yet
smothered them but it rose up the outside like water climbing around a sinking ship – the oval building looked as if it was
sliding down into the invisible earth.


Four floodlights stood at the edges of the amphitheatre, on ten-metre-high iron scaffolds. I circled the nearest floodlight,
feet dangling, and settled onto its metal housing. I shook wisps of fog from my wings and pulled them around me, stood cloaked
in long feathers.


The shade was very hot. I shuffled to the front and perched on the edge. The only noise was the oil lamps’ hissing. Above and around, all was dark – but the pitch below was
bathed in light. Two figures in the centre were swiping at each other with rapier and dagger.


There was Gio Serein, the Circle’s Swordsman. When I was growing up in Hacilith, he was the immortal with the biggest fan
club. Every child who wielded a stick pretended to be Serein and plenty of teenagers had aspirations to fight him. This could
only be a Challenge. I peered closer to see who could possibly go a round with him. It was a young Awian lad, who kept his
stubby dark wings folded so as not to present a target. His flight feathers were clipped in zigzags, the current fashion,
making them lighter. Short brown hair was shaved at the sides and stuck up in sweaty spikes on top. For agility, he wore only
a shirt and breeches. His sweat-patched shirt was fyrd-issue, dark blue of the Tanager Select infantry. He wore a glove on
his left hand, grasping the rapier hilt. He moved as if he was made of springs.


Serein had his knuckles upwards and thumb on his rapier blade to make strong wrist blows. The stranger caught one on his dagger,
thrust it wide, went in underneath with dagger and rapier. Serein struck back, low, with a cry.


The newcomer swept it aside, made a feint to the face, jabbing twice, and again Serein gave ground, keenly aware of his body’s
position. Then he ran in and scuffed up some sawdust with his leather pump. The Awian was wise to that trick; he parried the
thrust. Metal slid over metal with a grinding swish.


I glanced up and the size of the crowd held my attention. The twenty-tier-high banked stands were crammed to capacity and
more people arrived every minute, blowing out their lanterns, shoving a path down the walkways to sit on the steps and lean
against the posts. Gazing around, I couldn’t see any space where I could join them.


Directly opposite was a canopied box with the best view of the ground. The Emperor San was seated on a chair in the centre,
watching the two fighters impassively and completely without expression. One thin hand rested on his knees, the other was
curled on the armrest. His face was shadowed by the gold awning, thin magisterial features framed by white hair that hung
loose to his shoulders. If San was out of the Throne Room this must be really important. I folded my wings neatly so the tips
crossed at my back, and bowed my head in case he was watching.


On the Emperor’s left, Tornado, the Castle’s Strongman, was so big he filled that side of the box. He peered out from under
the awning that bulged over his head. On his right, Mist, the Sailor, stood with a great big grin on her face, her hands on
wide hips under a white cashmere jumper. Rayne, the Doctor, sat with her assistants on a bench at the side of the ground,
ready to intervene if anything went wrong. I recognised many of my fellow immortals scattered through the crowd, all intent
on the duellists. Well, I thought, it wouldn’t be a new year if Serein didn’t have another Challenger, but usually his supporters
in the crowd bellowed and cheered and hissed. This time there was a breathlessness in the air.


The duellists walked in a circle, marshalling their strength. Watching tensely. Both had their sword-tips horizontal in third
guard, daggers in their right hands held out straight to the right side. Footprints turned the sand dark in a ring where they
trod. They must have been at it for ages; their clothes were wet and the sand was damp with sweat.


Serein thrust, knees flexed. The Awian traversed sideways and Serein’s swept hilt nearly caught on his tightly taped sleeve.
They never lost eye contact; I knew what that was like. Head up and body in balance, keep all the moves in your peripheral
vision no matter how bright the steel is, cutting round your head.


Serein made his slicing arc too wide. The Awian jabbed at his stomach. Serein was forced back. The Awian jumped forward, thrust
sword arm and leg out, aimed for the hamstring behind Serein’s knee. Serein parried but his blade sloped. The Awian’s rapier
glanced off, he directed it to Serein’s calf. Serein moved away fast. Top move! Yes! Eat your heart out, Serein! I bounced
up and down on the floodlight housing until the whole thing shuddered.


Sorry.

They set to circling again, obviously exhausted but trying to see what chinks might open in each other’s guard. They tried
to spot any recurring foibles, to predict and use them. They were perfectly synchronised, reading the timing from each other’s
eyes. Seeing through the feints. Every time Serein sought a way to break out, the newcomer was with him, close like a shadow
through every strategy.


Serein shifted into second guard, spun the dagger so the blade was below his hand, took a swipe across the Awian’s face. Crash,
crash! They moved apart. Serein has spent his life studying the art of killing. Why hasn’t he won yet? His footprints on the
sand traced out one of his geometrical charts. He was using every trick he knew and he was getting nowhere.


Some people climbed up on the roof and lit the last floodlight. If the duellists registered the white glare intensify, they
didn’t react. They concentrated on thrust and parry, leant in with both hands at once, dagger blocking rapier. A spray of
sweat drops flew from Serein’s fair hair as he flicked it back.


My floodlight was a good vantage point. Moreover, being half Rhydanne I could see movements faster than the flatlanders can,
so I saw Serein’s cuts; to the other spectators they must be a blur. This was Serein slowed by fatigue. I knew how impossibly
fast he moves when fresh, because he’s beaten me black and blue with a buttoned rapier before now.


Serein was two metres tall, his substantial arms were hard with tired muscle. He bared teeth in a snarl as he screamed at
himself inwardly: concentrate! Even at this distance I could read the frustration in his pale eyes: why won’t you yield? Why
can’t I hit you? He kept turning hatred into big, angry slashes that his opponent just leafed aside with dagger, his rapier
in front narrowing the angle of attack. They were both as good as it was physically possible to be. The outcome depended on
who would slip up first, or simply stop, ground down by exhaustion. Perhaps Serein was slightly more cautious than the boy,
because he had more to lose.


Serein made two crown cuts to the boy’s head, lunged for his feet. The boy tried to catch the blade in his dagger quillions,
missed.


This kid has been around, I decided. He fights like an immortal. I had been flying on my own for days and my whole body was
alert to their moves. I had been in remote Darkling, which made me conscious of the crowd.


There was the Archer. Lightning stood closest to the duellists, leaning on the crush barrier staring raptly at them. A wide
Micawater-blue scarf was draped around his shoulders and a quiver of white-flighted arrows at his hip. He has the physique
of a cast-bronze statue. The willpower of one, too, and to be honest their sense of humour as well. This century he is less
glacial than usual, because he has been enlivened by another hopeless love affair. It was easy to see him; the surrounding
crowd kept a respectful distance. Though they all stood shoulder-to-shoulder, Lightning was on his own.


I swept off my perch with my wings held right back, down to the edge of the pitch and landed neatly next to him. ‘Who’s the
Challenger?’


Lightning smiled without turning. ‘Welcome back, Jant. How was the road from Scree?’

‘Very foggy. Who is he?’

‘That young man is Wrenn, a career soldier from Summerday. He left the Queen’s guard and made his formal Challenge to Serein
last week.’


‘Is that why the Emperor called me back?’

Lightning looked at me for the first time. ‘No. Don’t mention it in public – San has work for us. I was also recalled, and
I am not at all happy about it, since I had to leave my betrothèd’s side.’


(Lightning is the only person I know who still puts the è in betrothèd.)

‘Wrenn looks like a fyrd captain.’

‘He is. He made a name for himself in the town. He’s working his way up through the ranks, and I think being such a fantastic
swordsman has made him quite unpopular. Courtiers scent rumours and seek him out to prove themselves, but Wrenn refuses to
know when to lose. He gave Veery Carniss more of a flaying than a duelling scar. If he was nobility, he could have been promoted
higher. It’s a shame; I suppose he was frustrated by the cut-glass ceiling which is why he’s trying a Challenge.’


‘They both look tired.’

‘Jant, they started at six o’clock.’

‘Shit!’

Lightning gestured at the crowd, ‘Long enough for the Eszai and the whole of Demesne village to join us. Hush now. He’s such
a short boy, I don’t know how he keeps going.’


There was no blood on the sawdust. ‘Four hours and they haven’t touched each other?’

‘They’ve broken a sword each, though. Sh!’

Wrenn had obviously trained in broadsword techniques as well as the ideal figures of fencing. An overhead blow down to the
face, a thrust to the belly, adapted to the rapier – duellist’s weapons designed by humans for settling disputes between themselves in their city.


Winning is all. The Castle’s constitution is simple: two men on a field and by the end of the day one of them will be immortal,
and the other may as well be down among the dead men.


They used identical rapiers, damask steel blades with the same length and heft, issued by the Castle to ensure the Challenge
is fair. The Challenger is allowed to set the time of the competition, but the Challenged immortal decrees the type of contest.
Serein was formerly a fencing master; he had popularised the art across the Plainslands and Morenzia. Four centuries ago,
he won his place in the Circle by broadsword combat but since then he has usually stipulated that Challengers use his accustomed
rapier and poniard. Wrenn was so thickset that I could tell the long blade hadn’t been chosen to favour him, but he had no
problems wielding it. He cut straight at Serein’s chest.


Serein flung both hands up and bounded back. He landed in high guard, with both blades pointing at Wrenn’s face. Wrenn ducked
below them to attack – he flattened himself to the floor, one leg out behind, lunged forward with the rapier at arm’s length.


Serein got low to thrust, but Wrenn was quick to his feet. Serein stood still, parried with dagger, thrust with sword. Wrenn
pulled his cut to keep out of distance. He thrust under Serein’s arm.


‘That’s three from the left,’ muttered Lightning. ‘He’ll change now.’

That’s what Wrenn wanted us to think. He attacked from the left. He traversed to the opposite leg and changed dagger grip,
so the blade was down. He leant in, back straight, made a wide sweep, but too close and almost ran onto Serein’s rapier. The
crowd inhaled, expecting a double kill, but Wrenn, off balance, gave ground and the two began to circle again.


Wrenn launched a heavy cut to Serein’s shoulder.

If this was me, I would—

Serein jumped and stopped it with just his dagger before it gained momentum.

Well, I wouldn’t do that.

Then he tried to kick Wrenn in the balls.

Wrenn leapt away, threw his weight back and returned a reverse thrust at the same time.

I gasped. I’d never seen a fencer move that accurately before.

Serein couldn’t turn inside the thrust, and retreated, face sallow. He allowed his rapier point to drop from guard for the
first time. It gave Wrenn time to rally; he tried a cleaving blow. Serein beat it aside, turned his sword and cut at Wrenn’s
exposed hand. Wrenn backed off just fast enough to keep his hand. He parried, the dagger coming up beneath his rapier for
support. He lifted Serein’s blade, but Serein snatched it free. Wrenn faced Serein squarely, his whole body curved into a
hollow, his middle held away and his left foot down securely.


They found new strength, remembering that they’re fighting for immortality. San forbids his immortals to kill their Challengers,
although genuine accidents happen now and again. Serein looked furious at how long this was taking, he was channelling all
his brilliance at getting first blood from the young man.


Of course, no money Serein’s novices could offer him would lead him to reveal his finest moves. He never taught his students
enough for them to Challenge him. But it seemed that Wrenn had reinvented all Serein’s techniques from scratch, and added
his own innovations.


Serein deliberately made an out-of-distance attack, trying to draw Wrenn in. Wrenn was having none of it, he kept his body
well away. Serein tried a better angle, this time Wrenn’s dagger parried low. Serein’s rapier drove straight at it. The blades
shunted together. Serein punched his swept hilt at Wrenn’s fist. The dagger shot from Wrenn’s stunned hand like a dart.


Wrenn did not look for it but changed his rapier to his right hand, wringing his fingers. He was at a serious disadvantage.
Serein’s eyes tracked Wrenn’s expression as he deigned a smile.


‘It’s only a matter of time …’ Lightning said.

Wrenn knocked Serein’s rapier up with his sword’s forte, sliced. Serein kept out of the way. His confidence peaked; he could
just wait.


‘Serein will stick him like a pig.’

Wrenn made a straight thrust in quarte, Serein turned it easily. Everyone watched Serein beating Wrenn back across the releager, step by step until they were right
underneath the Emperor’s box. Wrenn was beginning to look from Serein’s rapier to dagger, and I could see his mouth was open.


Serein was lining up a way to end this. He feinted with the dagger, swung his rapier round in an outside moulinet for force,
straight down at Wrenn’s head.


And Wrenn stepped into the blow.

He caught the inside of Serein’s hand on the grip with his own wrist, forced it aside. His rapier arrested Serein’s dagger
and he stretched that arm fully to the other side. He tilted his blade; the tip lowered to Serein’s throat. Serein struggled,
stopped. Face to face they were so close their chests nearly touched. Wrenn looked Serein straight in the eyes, made an almost
imperceptible movement of the point and a red trickle ran down below the Swordsman’s larynx, between his collar bones into
the front of his shirt. First blood.


Wrenn punched both arms into the air. ‘Yes!’ he yelled. ‘I did it! I really fucking did it!’

For a second there was silence, and I could tell the same thought was running through every mind in the throng: how brave have you got to be to step into a cut in prime? Wrenn was prepared to die if his trick failed. Knowing he has to die sometime, he risked it for the ultimate
reward. Serein had lost that mortal determination – well, all us Eszai are living on borrowed time.


The crowd erupted. A lady next to me put her hands over her ears, the cheering was so loud.

‘What timing,’ Lightning breathed. ‘What bloody timing.’ He vaulted the low wall and sprinted across the pitch. I got to the
duellists first, saw Lightning throw a brotherly arm around Wrenn’s shoulders. Wrenn lowered his rapier, swayed on his feet.
He was about to faint.


I was suddenly at the focal point, and almost deafened by the crowds. Outside the lit ground the stands were invisible but
the applause was like a wall of sound. A chant caught like city-fire and spread through the stands: ‘Wrenn for Serein! Wrenn
for Serein!’ Fyrd swordsmen stamped their feet on the wooden benches; the thunder went on and on. Soldiers in civvies began
to spill out onto the pitch. I clapped my hands until the palms stung.


‘Yes!’ yelled Tornado, with one fist in the air. He stuck two fingers in his mouth and gave a long whistle.

‘Well done!’ Lightning exclaimed. ‘Well done, my friend!’ He turned Wrenn to the yelling crowd and raised Wrenn’s shaking
arm. ‘The victor!’


Serein, beaten, opened his hands and let his dagger and rapier fall to the trodden sand. They smelt weakly of disinfectant.
He looked around for a place to lie, knelt down, then curled up from humiliation and sheer exhaustion with his hands over
his head.


Wrenn seemed frightened. He looked more terrified the more he realised how many people were out there. His face had a lustre
from the grease smeared on his forehead to stop sweat running into his eyes. He was beyond the limits of mental and physical
endurance; he stumbled. Lightning walked him towards the Doctor’s bench, but the crowd swallowed them in and then hoisted up Wrenn in the centre, hands on his legs and backside like a crowd-surfer. They carried
him high above their heads, into the square passageway and rapidly out of the fencing ground. The floodlights highlighted
tousled wings and assorted backs as they ebbed away from us. Serein and I were left alone.


The sea of fog breached the far wall and poured down, slipping towards us at ground level.

‘That’s it,’ the Swordsman murmured. ‘Is that it? Am I out?’

He gradually got to his feet, shoulders bowed, head lowered.

‘Serein,’ I said. ‘It comes to us all in the end.’

He looked at me resentfully, but I couldn’t tell whether he was sighing from overexertion or bitterness. ‘Once I’ve left the
Circle I won’t want to see you again,’ he admitted. ‘Don’t visit me, Jant – I don’t want you to see me grow old.’ He put a
hand to his throat, rubbed it, and gazed at his red palm. The blood flow had practically stopped, but he was sticky with it
chin to waist.


He looked up to the hulking empty stands. ‘It’s the fear that takes it out of you.’ He rested his hand on my shoulder for
a second. Then he picked up his rapier, broke it over his knee, and walked off the field.


I climbed the spiral staircase to my tower room. The murals on its walls became more lurid and grotesque towards the top.
I don’t remember painting them; I must have been really stoned.


‘Hello, lover,’ I said, emerging from the doorway.

Tern was waiting in the lower part of the round split-level room, her hands on her hips. Anger spiced her voice. ‘Look at
you! All windswept! God, you look like a juggler from the Hacilith festival! Out of those flea-bitten mountain clothes and
into a suit … Here, wear this one; it’s elegant.’ She gave me a light and unusually demure kiss on the cheek. I looked
around our untidy apartment that my wife had colonised with architectural drawings, cosmetics, rolls of fabric and an enormous
wardrobe inside which I am sure a Rhydanne couple could live quite happily.


My carefully stacked letters slid into each other under Tern’s discarded dresses. All my specific piles of correspondence
had formed one mass like the Paperlands and reeked of her expensive perfume. She saw my look of horror and said, ‘I tidied
up your mess.’


‘That was my filing system! The letters I’ve read go on the table, noteworthy letters on the floor under the desk. The ones
I haven’t read are on the fireplace next to the pine cones … Where have they gone?’


My alphabetised books were spattered with used matches and sealing wax. Shed feathers littered my collection of old broadsheets.
Tern’s gowns covered the chaise longue where I like to lounge; dress patterns were taped on the posts of our bed. Her underclothes were scattered in mounds. She had even disturbed the dusty table on which stood my precious distilling
apparatus, although I had reassembled the glass retorts and condenser solely for the production of barley sugars.


Tern wore a bustier of chartreuse-green satin; its pleated sleeves wreathed her small black wings. At her throat, her wide
jet heirloom necklace looked like a collar. ‘This is all the rage,’ she purred. ‘Well, I say it is.’


‘How do I unfasten it?’ Her bare shoulders made her all the more tempting. I tried to undo her hair but her usual loose dark
waves were pulled back into a complicated chignon.


My wife’s town was reduced to brick shards and ashy rubble by the Great Fire of 2015. Of her black stone manor house only
one single outside wall still stood. Slug-trail slicks of molten glass hardened from its pointed arched windows; lead roofs
lay in solidified pools. The stumps of scrubby trees in her